OT- passat bumper skin removal

[gatesj at twcny.rr.com (John K. Gates)]

> ok, i tried vortex and various other sources with no luck. i must
> default to the infinite wisdom of the list on this one.

> the bumper skin has never sat correctly on the wifes passat. getting the
> passenger side to bolt up to the fender results in the plastic warping
> along the upper edge near the corner marker. i suspect a tweaked bumper,
> and i need to get to the steel part of it so i can do the necessary
> straightening. i've removed the skin at both edges (by the fenders), but
> i simply cant tell what i am working against to get it to let go of the
> front edge. im sure someone here has had to do this - as most of the
> list had passats as the 'family car'... please chime in.

FWIW, I can tell you exactly how to do it on an A3 Golf/Jetta.  The lovely
part about having a VR6 is that you get to take the entire
bumper/headlight/grille/radiator assembly off the front of the car if you
want to get to anything on the front of the engine.  This is more likely
to be similar to what you have than a Scirocco, hopefully.

Open the hood, there are four philips head screws along the front edge of
the top radiator core support.  Unscrew.  Carefully pry all the clips
loose that hold the grille on.  Unclip all fog, signal and marker lights
from the bumper cover.  Find 8 total bolts/nuts, 5 along the top that
would have been hidden by the grille and 3 along the bottom.  Remove
them.  These go through the bumper cover and the steel bumper.  You have
to counterhold the nuts with a wrench.  Disconnect the plstic
splashguards from the bumper cover, there should be a couple of screws.
The bumper cover and the styrofoam insert underneath it slides off.
Unbolt the bumper itself, there should be about 8 bolts, 4 into the
unibody frame rails and 4 into the upper radiator core support.

Now that the bumper is off, beat the crap out of it with a 3# hand sledge
to straighten it.  You will probably see where it's buckled out where it
bolts to a frame rail.  I had almost the same exact problem as you after
backing out of a parking spot in the middle of a blizzard and tagging a
snow-hidden fire hydrant with the edge of the bumper.

Failing that, maybe look at the ETKA?  Many times you can get an idea of
how things go together from that?

John K. Gates